Playing the Music

 Playing the Music

 

I was asked a difficult question this week by a man who was seeking understanding. He asked me, “What is the biggest problem the church has in communicating its message to our society?” I was stunned for a moment trying to think of my answer. I then remembered something I had read recently (I don’t know where), which was an excellent summary of this issue.

 

My answer went something like this: Bach was a great composer. His music was some of the best that was ever written. Yet when someone who is not yet skilled tries to play a Bach cello sonata, it doesn’t sound very good. If your only exposure to Bach’s music was through people who couldn’t yet play it very well, you might conclude that Bach wasn’t a very good composer. The problem wasn’t the music, but how it was being played. So too the church’s problem in communicating its message to our society is not a problem with the message, but how it is played.

 

The church’s message, its music if you will, is the greatest and most beautiful ever written. But it is also, like many of Bach’s compositions, very difficult to play well. Our music has lines like “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. (John 3:16) Or “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35) The church’s ability to communicate this first line has to do with how well they play the second.

 

Like all music, to play it well takes practice. One has to put in the effort to master the material. It is not enough to just know which note follows which, although that is very important. To play music well, it has to become part of you. Your focus is on the music itself, not the mechanics of playing.

 

When Christians learn to love well, our message can then be heard. We won’t obscure it with a mechanical rendition, or by faking what we have not yet mastered. There needs to be examples from those who play the message well, so the rest of us can know how it should sound.

 

Fortunately, such examples exist. Jesus Himself is the message, and an example of how the message is to be played or communicated. The apostle Paul encouraged us Christians to “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” (Romans 15:7) When we do this, Jesus, and Jesus’ message, is heard clearly. The music is being played well.

 

So to those who are not Christians, I want you to remember that the music of Christ’s message is much deeper and more beautiful than anyone of us can ever play it. Hopefully, from time to time, you see glimpses of the grandeur of the music God wrote through Jesus. I invite you to come and learn, and become a person who truly loves God and people. 

Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission book review

I’ve just read The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission by John Dickson, subtitled Promoting the Gospel with More Than Our Lips. It is not often anymore that I read books on evangelism or mission. I am tired of “how to’s” and this book’s title smelled like another how to book. Although I must admit that I’ve never liked sermons giving me 10 ways I can defeat the enemy or 15 ways to act like a Christian, I thought I’d give this book a chance - mostly because it had forewords by one of my favorite authors, Alister McGrath, along with Ravi Zacharias. It also had a nice word written by N.T.Wright on the back of the book jacket along with several others. So, I read it. I’m glad I did!

John Dickson begins with an apology. Not an apologetic, but an apology. Dickson is a self-admitted evangelist. And as such, feels that how evangelism has been taught has oftentimes hurt more than helped. By giving us specific ways to bring someone to the point of a ‘sale’ we have moved away from genuine interchange and into the realm of artifice. Potential ‘buyers’ can smell it and put up their sales resistant shields. Thus fewer and fewer sales are made and a rift is placed between the sellers and ‘targets’. The joy of sharing the gospel is replaced with self-consciousness and frustration and the world is left without a clear witness to Christ from His people. John hopes to help remedy that situation through this book.

John lists four unhelpful perspectives that have come from how we have been taught. These unhelpful perspectives have undermined our witness to Christ. First, because we have been given what words to say when, we have become self-conscious and contrived. Evangelism has become a special type of behavior that is somehow different than our daily life in Christ. We go out to witness as an add-on to how we actually live our lives. Thus our witness becomes contextually divorced from life.

Second, since our witness has been divorced from life, when we get an opportunity to say something about our faith in Jesus, we feel the need, nay the requirement, to say everything that we can say about the gospel. Every verse that has a bearing must be said. The ‘Roman road’ has trod over many a weary traveler, to this I can attest.

Third, we reduce the gospel to two simple points. First, we are unworthy of God’s acceptance, and second, that to be accepted by God we need only believe. The actual story of Christ Jesus as testified to in the four gospels is never mentioned. It is as if we expect people to already know who Jesus really is and all they need is some guilt and or fear to move them along. ‘Witnessing’ becomes a sales pitch instead of a personal testimony of the living Lord of life. No wonder people often feel like they have been sold a bill of goods. The Jesus that John wrote of who he had seen with his own eyes and his own hands have handled is noticeably absent.

The fourth unhelpful perspective is that we have underestimated the mission we all have in promoting the gospel in this world. We have often thought that the only way to get the message of Jesus out is to preach, or at least give verbal witness (lip service?). Now Dickson assures us that the verbal expression of the gospel is vital. He just wants us to realize that the verbal witness to Christ must come in a context that promotes the acceptance of this verbal witness. We all have a role in promoting the gospel by living a life consistent with the truth of this gospel.

This is where the title of the book comes in. Dickson writes “perhaps the best kept secret of Christian mission is that the Bible lists a whole range of activities that promote Christ to the world and draw others to him. These include prayer, godly behavior, financial assistance, the public praise of God (in church) and, as already mentioned, answering people’s questions. All of these are explicitly connected in the Bible with advancing the gospel and winning people to Christ. They are all “mission” activities, and only a couple of them involve the lips at all.” The first seven chapters are devoted to filling out what he means by these ways in which we all can promote the gospel.

He makes a helpful distinction between promoting the gospel and declaring the gospel. While we all can promote the gospel by these ways, not everyone is to declare the gospel through preaching. This service is set aside for those whom God has equipped and called to do such things.

This book was both a relief and a challenge to me. A relief in that I do not have to knock on doors or accost people at the mall in order to contribute to the church’s witness to Christ. The last vestiges of that leftover guilt was washed from my spirit, of which I am thankful. It is a challenge in that I can see several ways that not only I, but also those I lead, could be more involved in promoting the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This book is an excellent and timely encouragement. In an era where the pressure on Christians to acquiesce before the god of this age is intensifying, squeezing them into a crippled posture of hopelessness and ineffectiveness, the thoughts that John Dickson has shared herein can work as an antidote. I pray for the day when Christians will live their lives in such a way as to adorn the gospel with beauty, presenting Jesus as He is, the gracious and awesome Lord of all.

You Shall Be My Witnesses

Jesus is quoted in Acts 1:8 saying "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." The reason for the Holy Spirit coming upon these disciples was so that they could have power to be a witness to Jesus.

A witness is someone who has seen something and has firsthand information. This to me is intriguing. If, as it is commonly done, we apply these verses to all Christians making us all witnesses - which I too think is correct, what are we firsthand witnesses of? Certainly not Jesus as He was in Israel. We, like Paul, are witnesses of the exalted Jesus.

But why would we need power for this? Why would we need the power of the Holy spirit coming upon us for this? I don't think that what Jesus was simply referring to was some synchronization with what we say and the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the listener, although true as far as it goes. But the power is given so that our claim that Jesus is Lord of all could be demonstrated with action, not in words alone.

This is why Paul wrote in 1 Cor 2:4-5 NIV "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." It is an essential part of our witness to demonstrate the veracity of our claim that Jesus is Lord. This is demonstrated by the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to be on us, seen by the acts and signs of power. Without this supernatural demonstration our witness is just another ingredient in the plurality soup.

The Jesus we have come to know is indeed Lord of all. This is our eyewitness claim. We declare that he is exalted to the Father and to prove it He has poured out the Holy Spirit upon us. (please note the italicized words - on not in) These supernatural gifts of the Spirit and the resulting love of the Spirit reproduced in our lives is our gift to the world to demonstrate the living reality of Jesus. We are witnesses.